CPU to use

[bsalinux]

Hi,

I'm new to FreeNAS (only built as a VM so far). I would like to build a enterprise class NAS with 12x 2TB HDD with RAIDZ2 (ZFS). I plan to use dedupe (with FreeBSD current or future FreeNAS 9x).

Would following be suffcient for my task?:
Dual Irwindale Xeon ~3.0GHz x64
16GB DDR-333 ECC REG

I understand that dedupe uses more memory (or SSD) for large tables.

Thanks

 

[survive]

Hi bsalinux,

That system should be ok, but I would really consider buying something newer. The Irwindale procs are pre-core\core2 chips and really aren't all that efficient. For about $600 you could get a nice little Supermicro board with an i3 Xeon and 16GB of DDR3 memory that should run circles around a dual Irwindale system. Ther's certainly no reason not to try with your existing gear, assuming you will be using a decent case swapping out the board should be an easy process if your existing setup isn't performing.

I don't really know exactly how demanding de-dupe is on a CPU, but I know it will suck up every bit of RAM you can give it so the ability to add more without breaking the bank would be key here!

How do you plan on connecting the drives? What hardware do you currently have that you want to include? How important is "enterprise class"?

If I were you I would contact our good friends at iX Systems and see what they would suggest.....if you buy the system from them you can get their industrial-grade TrueNAS software that has some extra features (like de-dupe & zfsv28) that FreeNAS doesn't and get started with the good stuff right away.

-Will

 

[bsalinux]

Hi Will,

Thanks for the comforting answer. You are correct, I want to start this project up using what I have and then later if I feel performance degradation, I can swap the board.

As far as I can tell one needs 1GB of memory for every TB of storage but this could be alleviated by adding a SSD for large tables that de-dupe uses.

I have shortlisted a few controllers
IBM M1015
IBM BR10i

Can you please suggest if these are ok?

Thanks.

 

[Milhouse]

I have shortlisted a few controllers
IBM M1015
IBM BR10i

Either should be fine, but while the M1015 will support 3TB+ disks (assuming you want to use these in future), the BR10i will not.

 

[bsalinux]

I'm also in process of clearing out my Dell MD1000 with 450GB SAS drives that I can use with this setup with a Dell SAS adapter.

 

[bsalinux]

Either should be fine, but while the M1015 will support 3TB+ disks (assuming you want to use these in future), the BR10i will not.

How about P400 controllers from HP? These are entry level LSI 1068 based controllers.

Thanks.

 

[Milhouse]

How about P400 controllers from HP? These are entry level LSI 1068 based controllers.

No.

The rule is that pretty much all of 3GB/s LSI processors will not support greater than 2TB disks, while all current generation 6GB/s LSI processors will.

The LSI 1068 processor is a previous generation 3GB/s processor that will not support 3TB (it's the same processor used by the LSI SAS 3801E controller).

The IBM M1015 uses the same SAS 2008 6GB/s processor as the LSI 9211-8i controller, and both will support 3TB.

 

[survive]

Hi bsalinux,

The 1GB of ram per TB is a good rule of thumb, I don't know it's exact origin or how exactly accurate it is. I can assure you that if you use ZFS you will not go wrong giving it "to much" memory.

Adding SSD's for ZIL and L2ARC caches does not eliminate the need for having "enough" RAM to operate ZFS efficiently, and as I understand it, de-dupe requires even more memory than just plain old ZFS. This is where a newer motherboard that supports tons of ram comes in. That said, if you want to use FreeNAS right now de-dupe isn't even an option so theres no reason not to try with your existing parts.

I have a BR10i that I'm using with 8 1TB Samsung drives and it works great. As Milhouse said, if you want to use 3TB drives you need a newer controller but if you look around you can get the BR10i's for about $50 each so it's a good place to start even if you are going to outgrow them quickly.

-Will

 

[bsalinux]

Hi All,

Thanks for all the replies. Due to economic constraints I will use whatever I have right now. Here is my tentative configuration:

1. CPU: Xeon Irwindale 2x
2. Supermicro dual CPU server board
3. 8GB memory to start with and maybe upgrade to 16GB (MAX)
4. 4x 2TB constellation drives; will add more later as Thailand recovers from floods
5. SmartArray P400 card (that's what I have) Maybe a later upgrade to a better HBA.
6. Supermicro Chassis with 700W power supply and 8x HS drive bays.
7. Will use FreeBSD instead of freenas (sorry)

Thanks for all the help.

 

[bsalinux]

For about $600 you could get a nice little Supermicro board with an i3 Xeon and 16GB of DDR3 memory that should run circles around a dual Irwindale system. Ther's certainly no reason not to try with your existing gear, assuming you will be using a decent case swapping out the board should be an easy process if your existing setup isn't performing.

Thinking of next build, Do you mean Xeon E3 or Core i3?

 

[survive]

Hi bsalinux,

Either will work, but I think you get ECC with the Xeon procs. The price difference isn't that great between them.

-Will

 

[bsalinux]

Thanks for the advice on the controllers,

I have been running BR10i for some time now and it is pretty stable.
I also tested the M1015 but by default it doesn't work!

Anyways I have a Br10i left over from my experiment if anyone may be interested. Please pm me. Thanks.